Ok , feeling kinda morbid

do you have any near death stories ? accidents , hearts attacks , clogged bowels , anything will do , really

share

I slipped on a wet patch and slid over a cliff...was in freefall about 30 feet and noticed a narrow wet patch between two huge boulders...Landed feet first in about three feet of water and was unhurt...My buddy was laughing hysterically, he thought I was a goner...I've always had a fear of heights and I'm still amazed I managed to be so cool even when I plumeting below...I was definitely lucky!

I am terrified of heights and get terrible vertigo just thinking about it. Did you kick your buddy's butt for laughing at you? I might have, once the adrenaline stopped LOL. :-)

He didn't start until he knew I was OK...he gave me a hug and we laughed together...I have terrible vertigo too and the fact I escaped death or serious injury makes the memory not so awful...It just happened so fast, though!

have left to release the emotion when something like that happens. Isn't it funny when you look back on stuff like that? It's so fast and you're on the other side going, "Whoa. That was close."

I figure I have eight lives left!

Too bad nobody filmed it--you'd be a YouTube celebrity forever!

I was a kid and the last thing I remember before going under before surgery was the discussion between the surgeons about how they didn't think they could save the arm. They did.

thanks for the arm.

bleed out.

taking a shit in the dark (well, shit was pouring down my pantleg, but whatever) when a patch of dark just in front of me was suddenly not quite as dark
I must have thought I saw it before I actually saw it, because I had already let the lever fly on the grenade in my hand, in one move I flipped the grenade up and dove backwards (somehow) into our hole.
The grenade went off as I hit the ground, never felt the bullet rip through my chest, that may have been all at the same time
Literally the next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital.

Weird to think about all that now. Here is a picture I had taken of me about a month later

I have posted it here before... it was just recently unearthed, scanned, restored and I colorized parts of it

I find it fascinating that sometimes we subconsciously register a "that's not right" moment and react. It sounds like your reaction allowed you to survive, not that getting shot in the chest is a picnic. I'm glad you're still here. Great pic - love the colorizing.

Oh, and yours is one of the best DU monikers ever. Glad I finally got a chance to respond to one of your posts so I could say so.

yeah, to this day, I have no idea what I saw, heard, felt, smelled or sensed before I saw the face a foot away, but I am glad I did

I tend to think he must have been trying to figure out where the shit smell was coming from... I doubt he saw me, I was completely blacked out.

than we tend to realize. We've been so "civilized" over the years that we think we no longer have proper instincts, but stories like yours make me think they are still there. We just do not access them until we need it.

And you're welcome. :-)

I had been sick nearly a week with a massive fever and brain swelling. About five days in I was barely hanging on and effectively in a deep delirium, totally unable to communicate. Unfortunately, I could still hear everything going on around me. The doctor told my parents to start planning my funeral, and that even if I lived I would likely have severe brain damage. I remember thinking, "well, that's not good." I detached a great deal after that and honestly feel I was instinctively preparing for death. It would have been welcome, to be honest, as the pain was so intense. It was like nothing I have ever felt before or since, but I guess your brain swelling inside your skull will do that to you.

The worst day was the last. At some point in the night, I dimly registered that I had stopped breathing. I thought, "well, here I go." It was very peaceful and it felt like I left my body and floated a while, then settled back into myself; I can't quite describe the feeling, but it was like a giant "whoosh" and I was back in my body. My breathing started up again. It could have just been an effect of the delirium, but it seemed so very real. A nurse came in a little later and checked my pulse and IVs and then left. I woke up the next morning, fever broken and hungrier than I have ever been. Lost twenty pounds and needed physical and cognitive therapy, but eventually healed. A couple weeks after coming home, I told my Mom about the sense of leaving my body and floating and she went white. She told me she woke bolt upright that last night and thought, "she's dead." She called the hospital immediately, and the night nurse checked on me and told her I was "hanging on." I still wonder about that night. It was very weird.

Terrible, but with an awesome ending! Wow!

It was mind-blowing to have that happen so young. I went into middle school an old lady in a lot of ways. Facing death gives you a certain freedom from all the stupid crap thrown at you. You prioritize much more efficiently, if that makes sense, and tend to blow off the small stuff. it made a huge a difference in my life and I (possibly perversely) would not trade it.

Thanks for reading my monologue LOL. :-)

on edit: poor phrasing

I'd be interested in your feedback

The horse I owned as a kid was kind of spooky. One day I was off of him in the middle of a field -- I think he'd bucked me off, but that wasn't the scary part. I went to grab the reins, and he started trotting off. I took off after him, and he kicked out at me. The hoof grazed my chest and left a small red mark. I often think that if I'd been a couple of inches closer, he could have stopped my heart or smashed my face to smithereens.

Another time, I was riding him in an arena and he stepped on a paper bag. (Bags always freaked him out). He started pulling his hoof back, and the bag came with it. He leaped backward and fell over on his side with me on him. Luckily, I fell clear and was not in the stirrups, or else I would have been crushed. I did wind up wearing a cast on my arm for a few weeks (cracked elbow). I was 12.

Horses. Oy vey. They are magnificent animals, but it is so easy to get hurt or killed around them.

Animals can be so unpredictable, and a large animal like a horse has such power. We're so puny in comparison. I certainly would have been freaked out by your experiences. In both situations, just a split second one way or another, and the results could have been far different...but you knew that. :hi:

When I was a kid, horses were my greatest joy. But, as you get older and have some of these experiences, it finally sinks in that you are always in some sort of danger, even with the gentlest of horses. You finally grasp the potential consequences of a horse-related incident. Once that fear is planted firmly in your brain, it's hard to remain a "horse person."

:hi:

my daughter drove a horse carriage in downtown chicago for a few years. a friend that she met at this job stayed around after she left. friend became the manager of the stable. these guys were a very cash business, and were known for stiffing people if they could. so this young lady racked up some iou's. when she quit the job, they owed her a chunk of change, so she gave them an offer they couldn't refuse- instead of the money, she would take her favorite horse, harry.
she was a single girl, so, her life revolved around harry. she took jobs at horse farms, because she could take harry. she moved back to town, and lived out in the boonies, so that she could live where she could house harry. she volunteered with kids with disabilities, helping them to ride horses.
she drove from chicago to virginia when she found just the carriage she wanted for harry. she brought it back, cleaned, polished and restored it. for harry.
not long after she got the carriage all fixed up, she took a couple of friends out for a ride. they were trotting around a farmer's field. the carriage hit a bump, tossed all the passengers. harry freaked out, and took off running. the carriage bumped along behind him, bouncing hard, as he tried harder and harder to get away. finally, he stopped, and plopped down, sitting like a dog.
the girl was a little stunned, but looked over to see harry sitting there in the field. except that horses don't sit like that. both of harry's back legs had been smashed to pieces by the bouncing carriage. one of the passengers lived close by, and had a gun. he went home to get it, and harry was put out of his pain right there, and buried with a back hoe the next day.

:cry:

but still had to pay her $13k hospital bill herself. (er, mri of the head.)

What a terrible thing for your daughter and her beloved horse. :cry:

this was a friend of my daughter's.

Sorry! Regardless, it's a difficult story and I thank you for sharing it. :hug:

on edit: subject spelling oops

Appropriately in Greensboro's Death Valley. (where six different US highways and Interstates share one bit of road).

It was a wet day, and about a mile ahead of us there was a tanker truck spilling diesel all the way along the road. It was my unlucky day - I hit a particularly skiddy patch just a little bit too fast and lost control. I bounced off to the right into the guardrail, span to the left into the path of a 18-wheeler. Hit the guard rail on the other side and finally came to a rest on the right. The car came out in the shape of a horseshoe with the driver side door fully pushed into the middle.

I came out with scrapes and cuts.

Mark.

The only thing that saved me was a mop that I bought from Kmart.

The mop bought me time until two guys came and shot the dogs, died.

Yes, my life did flash before my eyes.

I did not panic, panic can get you killed.

I caught a bad cold and laryngitis, then bronchitis and pneumonia. I initially went to the Dr and she gave me the super bionic antibiotics, but I continued to get sicker and sicker.

I spent the next 10 days sleeping about 20 hours a day, (which is what I do when I get sick). I could barely sit up anymore when I did get up. I could not eat, and my only fluid intake was to take my daily meds. I lost so much weight and became so dehydrated that I was unable to pee for a couple days. I was in kidney failure.

My mother was frantic and arranged for my sister to take me back to the Dr office since I could not drive and could barely sit up. The Dr looked at my lab results she just got back from the week before and said I was already in kidney failure back then. She didn't want to examine me or do any lab, just wanted me to go straight to the hospital.

I was admitted to critical care and was unconscious for the first several days. My poor mother thought I was going to die and called all the relatives. I don't recall any of them being there.

Took me almost a damn year to recover from that.